Shattered Tears
by Rayni
Summary: Oneshot. Serge's second visit to the fort of the Dragons, to recover what was stolen and retrieve what was lost...


Disclaimer: Chrono Cross is copyright to Squaresoft. This fanfiction is for reader enjoyment only and I'm not making any money.  
  
Author's Notes: This is my version of what happened at Serge's second visit to the fort. If this doesn't fit in with your idea of Serge's personality, you can't really complain because, being a silent protagonist, he represents the persona of the player. Please, people, review review review! I can stand being criticized. Go on, yell at me. Tact is only a tool of people who aren't witty enough to use sarcasm. Of course, when I snap, those who flame me will be the first to go.  
  
  
  
Shattered Tears  
  
The feeling of weightlessness was replaced by the hard wrench as my body passed through the floating platform. I gained control again and stood upright, trying to get rid of the sick feeling in my stomach. I hated everything about Fort Dragonia. If I had to pick the worst place I'd ended up on this so-called adventure, it wouldn't be Earth Dragon Island, where I was constantly getting sand in my fur; it wouldn't be the Hydra Marshes, with the stench of decaying organic material made stronger by my acute feline sense of smell; it wouldn't be fighting a dead knight on an island where the floor was made of bones; it wouldn't even be the terrible heat of Mount Pyre, intensified by my thick fur coat. No, it would be Fort Dragonia, where I'd picked up the fur coat in the first place. I'd been living in this feline demihuman body for so long I couldn't even remember what it was like to be human.  
  
I pushed open the ornately carved doors of the last room of the fortress, and let out the breath I was holding when there was no vision of me standing over Kid with her own dagger bloody in my hand. I knew now that it wasn't really me standing over her, but Lynx in my body. I never should have walked through those doors in the first place. What was the reason for the dream and the vision, if not to warn me not to keep going? She said, "C'mon, mate!" and walked right in. But I should have warned her! It was my fault all of this had happened to Kid. Still, she was alive. But she was captive, and spelled into believing that I was Lynx. Maybe I was. Harle had said it too. "If everybody, except for yourself, says zat you are Monsieur Lynx... zen... Voila! Zat iz who you are."  
  
I stared into the pitch darkness of the room, my sharp cat eyes picking out every detail of the interior. Everything in me balked at walking through those doors.  
  
"Serge..." Steena's voice interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to look at her. Her piercing gold eyes, almost the same color as mine, gazed intently at me. "You must proceed alone from here. You must see and confirm for yourself who you really are... Truth shall manifest itself once you believe in your heart."  
  
I turned away from her and walked into the darkness, not ready to voice the fear that I didn't really believe I was human anymore. The doors closed behind me.  
  
Same room. Same six dragon statues. Light glowed from lines in the floor, a dim violet color. I held the Dragon Tear in my hands, feeling the power emanating from it grow stronger as I approached the stand. All that could run through my mind were memories of the worst day of my life, being in this same room, but a different world. Now was my chance to regain it all, to rewrite my memories of being Serge, as Harle said. This was the key to regain my friends' trust. Especially Kid's trust. But how could I do it if Lynx -- or Serge, whichever the case may be -- wasn't here? He had been here, but he'd vanished after our fight.  
  
A low growl escaped me and my fur bristled as I remembered him, wearing the same Porre uniform I was now and laughing at me. His eyes weren't the blue they were when he switched bodies with me. They were blood red now, and somehow he looked farther from how I remembered myself than ever. But the memories were slowly fading away... tainted by the dark, poisoned magic of the Tear of Hate.  
  
Finally, my eyes refocused on the stand and I placed my home world's Dragon Tear atop it.  
  
The blue light radiating from the Tear suddenly sprang to the wall to illuminate a mural painted there I hadn't noticed before. An eerie, disembodied voice accompanied the light. "All life on this planet was born in the sea," it said, sounding neither male nor female. "The life-forms softly slumbered within the womb of our mother sea..." The blue light moved from the depths of the ocean on the mural to illuminate the picture of a fish. "Until eventually they developed free will and were able to swim about the ocean freely. Then there came those that, not satisfied with life in the water, looked up from the ocean floor towards the blue skies and dreamt of the feel of the land. Aeons passed before their preposterous dream became a reality, and they rose up from the seas onto the earth." The pulsing light moved to light up a picture of a dinosaur, almost the same as the kind of 'dragons' the Acacia soldiers ride. "The land became full of all kinds of creatures," The voice continued. "Among these, the dragon lizards and the more evolved Reptites thought they would reign over the earth forever. And for a long while it seemed that they would..." The light moved to a painting of what seemed to be the sun. "However, the unforseen coming of the mighty one from the heavens suddenly smashed their kingdom to pieces. That one was known as 'Lavos!'" The voice took on a tone of awe. "The great crimson flame... Wielding absolute power, Lavos buried the dinosaurs -- the kings of the land -- in the space of a night." The light moved on. "However, the timid 'apes' who had lived hidden in the forests came into contact with the crimson flame that fell from the sky and evolved into 'humans.' Or perhaps it was not 'evolution,' but 'transformation.' In this way, humans increased in number and filled the earth. The fearsome 'progeny of Lavos' who, like their progenitor, began to devour our mother planet..." The light moved back into the Dragon Tear.  
  
'So that's the Dragonian creation myth', I thought. I remembered Lavos from the computer screen in the futuristic ruins of the Dead Sea. "But how do you know for sure about all this evolution stuff?" I asked the empty room dubiously. "Were you there?" No disembodied voice answered me back. "I don't know about that. If this is true, a lot of things are left up to chance. If nothing, no 'Entity' created us and is watching over us, what about destiny? Too many coincidences have happened to me for life to be meaningless chance. What about fate?"  
  
There was no answer. The light had only been a spell, a recorded message. I was alone. I turned back to the Dragon Tear, which was glowing in that same way it had the last time I was here. I stared into its depths, and wondered what to do. I couldn't switch bodies with Serge; he wasn't here. Lynx. I meant Lynx! Even now, the memories were fading. The honeycomb-patterned crystal inside the Tear beckoned, and I focused on it instead of the tempest raging in my head.  
  
Who was I? Was I Lynx? Was I Serge? What was Lynx, or Serge? A name, a body, a temporary shape? A soul.  
  
Bubbles of water solidified from the air and I watched incredulously as they grew and increased. I looked down in awe at the water clutched in my clawed hands. Then there was water everywhere, all around me. I couldn't breathe. I let out a roar and fell to my knees, but I was frozen in place and couldn't escape. I breathed water into my lungs, and the world spun around me crazily and went black.  
  
Black was nice. Black was simple. Cares about my identity disappeared, and I felt warm and small and at peace with the world as I hadn't in seventeen years. The memories were flying past at an alarming rate, bright and clear. Light. Pain. Wailing. A burst of joy accompanied the word "Mother." Diapers. Crying.  
  
Leena. I remembered the girl next door, red hair, blue eyes-----. A promise made at Opassa Beach so very long ago. Arni. That was the name of my home. Arni village. Una. Kiki. Lolo. Chief Radius. Poshul. The panther demon. Almost drowning. The memories came faster and faster now. Meeting Kid and the others. Even the horrible day of losing myself didn't seem so bad when viewed with a simple, peaceful attitude. The dragons. Time was racing at the speed of light, and suddenly I was caught up. This moment in the room hovering over Fort Dragonia. This moment.  
  
I opened my mouth to breathe for the first time as Serge again. The blue, crystal world around me shattered, and the water rushed to the ground. I could feel the cool stone of the floor beneath my human skin, and I opened my eyes to gaze at my reflection in the pool of liquid beneath me. Water dripped from my blue hair as I looked down at myself. This was my identity. Serge. I slowly stood up, and water dripped from my naked back to fall in puddles on the floor. I turned to the stand, saw the shattered pieces of the Dragon Tear of my home world. The other side of Lynx's coin. The Tear of Love to his Tear of Hate. He had switched with me for evil, and I became myself I again to fight him for good.  
  
I was me again, and the Tear was shattered.  
  
I smiled. 


End file.
